Vintage Fashion & Motors Shoot at Shanganagh Castle

A while ago, I wanted to “produce” a shoot from start to finish to combine planning, location finding, wardrobe, props, model, hair, make-up, lighting . . . and of course a bit of photography as well! I’d long admired the vintage style of California based Dmitry V. Popov’s Drive Back in Time portfolio – so I asked fellow Offshoot member Tony Jobling if he would be interested in collaborating and using some of his superb collection of vintage cars – he also brought his camper van to use as a base on location. Tony had previously worked with Shaleen Chadha, so we asked her to model for us. Castlethorn Construction, the then owners of Shanganagh Castle in Shankill, allowed us to use it as backdrop. Local makeup artist, Lorraine Carraher of Hollywood Beauty did hair and makeup and Maeve Brady of Vertigo Vintage provided the outfits.

Once the team was organized, there were two preparatory shoots – firstly to check possible sites at the location, and then one of Shaleen trying on outfits. We also checked the colours of the outfits against the cars – and confirmed that all the lights, triggers other gear was working. Now all we needed was the weather. The day started off bright and sunny, but we had no sooner set up our lights for sunshine and started test shots, when it clouded over . . . and we had to change all our settings. The joys of location shooting!

For the first outfit, the inspiration was rock star’s girlfriend very boho chic with an Edwardian camisole, 1960s skirt and 1970s crochet shawl and of course the Dart sports car works perfectly for this! The lovely Shaleen would have fit right in at a party thrown by the Rolling Stones at a country pile!

After lunch, Shaleen modelled a more formal 1950’s style sun dress. Here are two behind the scenes shots - firstly, with Lorraine doing the final check on the makeup and accessories – and then the obligatory selfie!

Here are my favourites of the formal outfit. Most of them are with the Daimler 250 saloon but we finished up with a shot of Shaleen “leaving for her date” in the Dart. Again, here’s Maeve’s description of the outfit:-

The second look is a more formal 1950s ensemble, very Hollywood starlet, with a 1980s sundress, and a 1950s stole and accessories. Shaleen worked the two completely different looks to perfection and Lorraine’s hair and make-up were spot on for the two eras.

As I said at the start, the theme for this shoot was inspired by Dmitry V. Popov’s Drive Back in Time portfolio. Much of his work is in black-and-white but he has some colour versions in his Flickr stream. Doing all of our shoot in B&W would not have shown the vibrant colours of the Vertigo Vintage outfits. I didn’t show any shots of the boho outfit in B&W because that was the era when we all started seeing colour on the tele! But I included a few B&W shots of the sundress, above to emphasise the dress's stripes and flowing shape.